His Wedding Night
by Fic Fairy
Summary: As far as I'm concerned this is what should have happened after Ric found out the truth about Thandie on their wedding day. Just a little bit of drabblelike Riconnie action!


**His Wedding Night**

He wasn't sure what hit him first as he opened his eyes; the well deserved hangover, or the sledgehammer style memories of his disastrous wedding day the day before. Somehow though, both things paled into insignificance with his next discovery. The sight of the shapely form cosily installed in Thandie's space in their bed was one sensory overload too many, and although his eyes had barely just opened, he quickly closed them again in the hope that said shapely form would disappear, taking the dark hair and delicate features that lay on the pillow next to his with them.

As he lay there in self inflicted darkness he began to question why he was so surprised to find her there. There'd always been some – well, a lot – of sexual tension between them, and quite frankly he felt she'd been asking for trouble when she'd knocked on his door the night before, which was just as well really, since apparently he'd been more than willing to give her it.

That, and several other things besides.

X X X

She arrived about 8, bottle of Scotch in her hand, which she proffered forward in the place of an explanation for her sudden appearance. He'd taken it, but looked at her as if she'd grown a second head.

"Shouldn't you be telling me that getting drunk isn't the answer?"

She shrugged, tossed him a wry smile, leaning against the doorframe with a twinkle in her eye.

"When my husband," she began, her tone measured, each word obviously being selected with a large amount of due care and attention, "revealed himself to be the," she paused, again searching for words, "slimiest, most spineless, lousy, cheating, lying," she smiled again, clearly enjoying sharing her description of the man she once claimed to love, "bastard imaginable, it was the only answer I had." She nodded at the bottle now in his hands, "I polished off one identical to that and as a result of doing so I learnt one very big lesson."

He looked at her questioningly, "Do tell…"

Yet another smile, and then she brushed past him, taking the bottle back and moving into the house,

"That if you're going to do it, the last thing you should do is do it alone."

X X X

She was in the kitchen, pouring two large measures before he'd caught up with her. It was only then that he noticed that something rather important was missing from her person but before he could question it she was making an enquiry of her own.

"Do you have ice?"

He moved to the freezer and took out half a bag left over from that morning when he'd served Thandie with Bucks Fizz in bed. He handed it over and then gave her a long hard look,

"What are you doing here Connie?"

She shrugged nonchalantly, "I told you, there's no fun in drinking alone, and I very much suspected you'd need a drink or two this evening."

"And where's your daughter?" He asked, taking the opportunity to ask about Grace, the 'something' that was conspicuous in its absence.

She wrinkled her nose, a look of disgust crossing her face, "She's with her father, and," the look of disgust grew, "her 'aunty Faye'. You know," she knocked back her drink in one, "next time I decide to play operation sperm donor remind me to chose someone who isn't going to have a modicum of interest in raising my child. Infact," she handed him his drink, "would you be interested? Or not, as the case may be."

He looked at her as if she'd gone mad, questioning, not for the first time, the nature of her bedside manner. Given the fact he'd just got himself into the web of one manipulative man eating 'spider', getting another one pregnant was not high on his agenda, not least given the Black Widow's reputation of eating the father of her babies for breakfast. Somehow he doubted Connie would be any different.

Seeing his look she laughed, "Relax, I'm joking. I just thought the fact that I've only met one of your nine would make you an ideal candidate but," she topped up her glass then passed the bottle to him so he could do likewise, "we're not here to talk about my ever ticking biological clock." She reached out and gently touched his arm, proving that actually her bedside manner wasn't so bad after all, "We're here to talk about you."

Her tone was so soft and gentle that in spite of himself he found his eyes filling with tears, as somewhere deep in his throat a large lump threatened to choke him.

"I don't think I can Connie. I don't think I can talk about this to anyone," he remembered their own history, the weeks, if not months it had taken him to get over what was essentially nothing more than a one night stand, "least of all you."

Without another word, she put her drink on the work surface and wrapped her arms around his waist, "Ric, I was married to Doctor Death remember… if there's anyone you can talk to, its me." She took his hand, "Come on, lets go get comfortable… it's going to be a long night."

X X X

Actually, it went by in a flash. Once he started talking about Thandie, and her betrayal, he found it impossible to stop, and before he knew it, the Scotch bottle was empty, it was 10.30 and there was nothing left for him to say. No tears left to cry.

Instead he went to his own liquor cabinet and pulled out a fresh bottle, before looking at her questioningly,

"More? Or do you have to get back for Grace?"

She shook her head, "They," her voice was so heavy with meaning that even after all the alcohol he found it impossible to miss, "have her for the night."

Beyond their brief exchange earlier in the evening, he'd never talked to her about her baby's father, or his current liaison with Keller's Ward Sister. Certain subjects were taboo around Holby, and talking about Connie's private life to her face was most certainly among them. But yet, with him having laid his own feelings bare, and his inhibitions lowered by the alcohol, he couldn't help but ask,

"Does it bother you? Grace having an 'aunty Faye'?"

She was silent for a long time, and then, eventually she sighed, "Only in so much that I fear she'll be the first in a very long line of aunties and I don't want the poor child getting very confused. Still, Sam knows how I feel about it, and I'd like to think he knows better than to rile me."

He smiled slightly, amused by what she wasn't saying as much as what she was, "And yet he still does…"

Connie opened her mouth as if to deny it, but then thought better of it, her own inhibitions obviously dropped too, "We have a complicated relationship, but Grace is my main concern."

"You enjoy being a mother?"

Her face broke into a beaming, and very genuine smile, and in an instant she seemed to be a million miles away from the woman who was always so keen to terrorise on the wards of Holby, "I love it. Every second is a pleasure. I feel blessed." Suddenly becoming aware she was gushing she blushed slightly but continued all the same, "I feel complete."

He sat at her side, topping up her glass from the new bottle, "I'm happy for you Connie, I really am."

"Thank you." She said softly, "I wish I could say the same for you but," she paused slightly before adding, "your life is a complete bloody shit-show right now."

In spite of the truth in her words, and what it meant for him, Ric couldn't help but laugh. He'd always loved her characteristic bluntness and actually, at that moment, quite appreciated it. He held up his glass to propose a toast,

"To my shitshow of a life?"

She clinked his glass but shook her head as she did so, "No, lets not give your good lady wife the satisfaction. Let's drink to 'good friends who never say I told you so'."

He grinned, "Is that your way of saying I told you so?"

"No," she smiled, taking his hand in hers, "why would I? I mean, you never said it to me."

X X X

As one bottle became two, then two and a pizza became three, they became more drunk, with him becoming more melancholy as she became more animated, and in turn, more flirtatious. If he'd been in a better place he might have given her as good as she gave, but after the day he'd had he couldn't quite find the energy. The drunker they got the more the conversation went round in circles, occasionally diverging but more often than not coming back to Thandie.

And just when he thought they'd taken the subject, again, as far as they possible could, Connie proved him wrong.

"Was she good in bed?"

He looked at her incredulously, but she refused to be put off her line of questioning.

"No, come on, humour me. Was she? Because I imagined she would have been."

He started to laugh, his incredulity growing, "You gave it a lot of thought?"

She nodded in all seriousness, "God yes. You and she landed during my second trimester – sex was all I ever thought about. Once I got past the jealousy," she added nonchalantly, "I fixated on it. I figured she had to be good in the bedroom because she had absolutely nothing else going for her."

He chose to ignore the slur on his wife given the fact that it was well deserved, and besides which Connie had given him something much more interesting to focus on.

"You were jealous?"

She shrugged, not the slightest bit embarrassed, "I was fat, pregnant and horny, and she was thin, attractive and keeping one of Holby's most eligible bachelors to herself, Of course I was bloody jealous."

He smiled amiably, "I do apologise. I hope you found someone to assist you with your little problem."

She pouted slightly, "Unfortunately not, apparently the beached whale look is not one most men find attractive."

"But you've made up for lost time since the birth?"

She said nothing, suddenly apparently coy and concentrating all her attention on flicking a piece of imaginary fluff from the arm of the sofa.

And then, in an instant he understood what she was doing there.

"You've come here for sex? On my wedding night?"

"I don't see your bride anywhere." She said with a shrug, but she still kept her eyes down, refusing to meet his gaze. He was about to tell her that Thandie's absence really wasn't the point, and that her behaviour was totally inappropriate, but then he noticed the look of desperation in her eyes.

"You haven't had sex since before you fell pregnant?"

"More or less." She let out a sigh, finally raising her eyes to look at him, "But it's not the only reason I'm here. I wanted to be a friend to you first and foremost, but… well…" she looked at him awkwardly, "if you wanted to screw the bitch out of your system, well, then, it might do us both a favour."

It was ludicrous, preposterous and many other things besides, but whether because of the alcohol he'd consumed, or their close proximity and the way their thighs were touching so he could feel her heat beside him, in seconds he was seeing it her way.

She wanted sex. He wanted revenge, and sex with anyone would be a good start.

And he knew from past experience that he didn't have to worry in the slightest about her getting too attached in the morning.

He reached out, stroked her cheek, "Considering I'm currently seeing two of you I can't promise it will be any good."

A grateful and relieved smile spread over her face as she realised she was about to get her own way, "It's been a year Ric, do you really think I care?" She got to her feet, with a glint in her eye, "Shall we do it in your marital bed?"

He stared at her, "Are you getting off on this?"

She nodded, "Absolutely, but then again, isn't that the general idea…"

X X X

"Ric." Her voice came ringing out through the darkness, but he ignored her, still hoping she might go away.

No such luck. She tried again, sounding more impatient.

"Ric, just open your bloody eyes."

Slowly he did as she asked, wincing as the light increased the intensity of his hangover twice over, and found her sat up in bed, the covers pulled up to her chin, and a wicked smile on her face.

"Good morning."

He found himself grimacing at her perkiness, put out that in spite of matching him glass for glass she was apparently not only 'fine' but brighter and more bubbly than ever. He nodded to her slowly,

"Morning Connie. You're well?" he added, as a matter of courtesy.

She nodded, looking every inch like the cat who'd got the cream. Apparently for all his drunkenness he'd delivered precisely what she'd been after the night before. "Very well thank you, and," she smiled, "thank you for last night."

He shrugged, "That's ok. I enjoyed it too. Thank you."

She rose from the bed, giving him a full view of the luscious body he remembered only drunken glimpses of from the night before. He had a vague recollection of her doing some embarrassed mumbling about stretch marks but in the cold light of day he could see nothing of the sort, and hangover aside, what he could see was having a interesting and intense effect on his body.

"Where are you going?" he asked, as she moved around the room, collecting the various items of clothes he'd discarded after removing from her the night before.

She looked at him, "I read somewhere once that you shouldn't crowd a man when you've screwed him on his wedding night and you're not his wife."

He smiled at her, still not quite believing that he was about to say what had just popped into his head,

"Really? Well I read somewhere that rampant passionate fast and furious sex is the best cure for a hangover? Would you like to help me prove or disprove that theory?"

In seconds the clothes were back on the floor again and she was upon him, straddling his chest and kissing him tenderly on the lips and uttering two words he'd already heard once in the last twenty four hours.

"I do."

X X X


End file.
